How to Take Screenshots in Windows 10?

There are times when you are beholding beautiful scenery, video footage, a running game sequence or anything abstract that you want to capture a picture of. There is no convention for that with your image viewers, or media players, thus you need to think a different way around to take a snapshot of that moment. Though there is no direct approach to take screenshots of any on-going motion pictures, but there are certain trickeries that can be manipulated to fulfill your purpose.

Windows 10 is fully equipped with certain tools that can enable you to perform such trickeries to take screenshots. And this is what we are going to discuss here in great detail which remains unknown to most of the users.

Method #1: Take Flexible Screenshots with Snipping Tool

Snipping tool is one of the fantastic tool facilities that was first introduced in the Window’s Vista and never got any upgrading except few bug fixes but in Windows 10 it has got some extra diligence to surprise you. It basically helps you to capture screenshots of free form area, a running video, open window or the whole screen.

The advantage in Windows 10 includes the ability to capture mouse movements as well like pop-ups and tooltips with an option called “Delay” unlike in the previous Windows versions.

So how to use this wonderful tool, read below in full length:

Step 1. Firstly launch the Snipping tool and click on the “Delay” option.

Step 2. As soon as a sub-menu appears, choose the time interval the tool would wait before it captures the screenshots.

Step 3. After you have set the delay time interval, click on “New” button to select the type of snip you wish to make, for instance, free-from; rectangular; full-screen; window.

Step 4. Now the screen would not fade into white like the previous OS snipping tools. Thus in the meantime, you can prepare the pop-up menu or tooltips such that they too appear in the screenshot.

Step 5. After the screenshot is taken at the allotted time, you can save it anywhere by clicking “Save as” option.

Method #2: Use Short Keys to Save Screenshots as a File

Windows 10 has many short key combinations which are mostly users remain unaware of. But if they are revealed, you are simple one-click away from taking a screenshot. Isn’t that wonderful? Indeed it is. So grab the step instructions lined up below on how to do it:

Step 1. Turn on your system first, and go to page or location that you wish to take screenshot of.

Step 2. So once you are on that screen, check for any dysfunctional parts in your keyboard if any present.

TIP: This particular short key combination might even vary from system to system. For example, you have to press “Windows + Volume down” buttons together if you are using a tablet, or “Windows logo + Ctrl + PrtScn” or “Windows logo key+Fn+PrtScn”.

Step 4. Once you pressed the aforementioned key combination the screen would instantly turn dim for a moment and the screenshot would be appearing within a folder. The folder is labeled as “Screenshots” located within your default “Pictures” folder.

Step 5. As a matter of fact, all the screenshots would be saved here in PNG format.

NOTE: The dimming effect can be customized from the “Visual Effects“in “Advanced Settings”.

Method #3: Take Screenshots using Game in Windows 10

There is a Game DVR feature in Windows 10 which was not present in the last Windows OS versions. This method can be deployed to take screenshots for running PC games. The screenshots are usually created in the PNG format and is saved in the following location:

“C:\Users\[your username]\Videos\Captures”

So let’s start with the procedure to take the screenshot:

Step 1. So prior to beginning the method, check if you have already launched the Xbox with your Windows settings or not.

Step 2. Now beneath the “Game DVR” settings, toggle on the “Take screenshots using Game DVR” option and allot the shortcuts that want to have.

Step 3. Now in order to take the screenshots, use the key combination “Windows + G” and click “Yes, this is a game” option if prompted in between.

Conclusion:

As you can see how important capturing an image is, various simultaneous user-friendly applications have been devised so far to facilitate the screenshot capturing. Snipping tool is one of the recognizable tools of all as it saves a lot of your valuable time. The screenshots that are taken are generally stored in the PNG format, but if you wish to change the format to JPEF or any other format, select the file type while saving in screenshot folder.